Who Was Brandon Baptist?  

As Brandon Baptist’s mom shared, her son had made peace with his killers and dedicated his life to God. But who was Brandon Baptist? In his earlier years, he was no stranger to the law and the courts. Back in November 2012, he was charged alongside Tyrone Meighan and the now-deceased Orel Leslie for the murder of James Noralez. In 2016, he faced charges for the murder of Stann Creek resident Mariano Castillo but was later acquitted. Then, in August 2019, he was charged with eighteen others for the home invasion of Sarkis Abou-Nehra in Burrell Boom. Despite his troubled past, Baptist had been trying to turn his life around in recent years, as his mother mentioned.

 

Brandon Baptist, Deceased (File: August 28, 2024)

“I deh pahn the street for quite some while, I get caught up in the jail a lot of times.  I was with the police. I always deh pahn news. Everybody knows me, Brandon Baptist, right?

 

Marion Ali, Reporting

Brandon Baptist was a man almost everyone knew, not just for his past run-ins with the law, but also for his positive contributions to the community after turning his life around. He became an integral part of the Leadership Intervention Unit, helping to make significant strides in the community. In an interview with us last August, focused on gang life, Baptist candidly shared that while temptations were real, his efforts to change were genuine and heartfelt.

 

Baptist

“Every time I try to do something positive, I  fall back. But I still fight it, I still do it. So I decided to like, get together wid my brethren and see if I could try to do something positive back home, back in the Martins with the re youth dehn because you know win uh want the lee youth dehn start stray and then dehn up eena da gang world or da violent world.”

 

Dominique Norales, Director, Leadership Intervention Unit

“When I first started, it was six months in that I realized that Brandon was thirty-eight, thirty-nine. I didn’t even know he was that age. I thought he was younger. So he was always full of life. Always willing to talk, always, even when he mis-stepped and we have to suspend or we have to give an extended suspension or fire some people from the team that he supervised, always willing to compromise and always comes with solutions. Brandon and I considered him to be not only an employee of the socioeconomic programs that L.I.U has, I considered him to be a friend.”

 

Dominique Norales is the Director of the Leadership Intervention Unit, an organization through which he had endeavored to make a positive difference in the lives of the youths with whom he interacted. She spoke with him a few days before he was killed.

 

Dominique Norales

“I saw Brandon last week Sunday as I was leaving  from my mom’s and grandmother’s house. And I said, “Bwai you dress up. Weh yoh di come from?” He said “I di come from church.” I said, “okay, well, we’re trying to arrange to go together sometime.” And that was the last time I saw him, and the last time. Well, my team spoke to him was a Friday evening at around five. It’s been really difficult to navigate for more reasons than one.”

 

Baptist opened up about the struggles he faces trying to stay on the right path. Norales pointed out that this is a common reality for men like Baptist who are always striving to turn their lives around. She emphasized that sometimes, simply reaching out can be the difference between making a mistake and doing something good.

 

Dominique Norales

“We cannot measure what being in contact with these persons does for peace in the streets. It’s a qualitative thing, it’s a trust thing. It’s not something you can write on paper and I’ve been trying to – with my academic mind – trying to figure out how we qualitatively measure what a phone call to someone means, what someone coming to the office to just blow off steam means, what picking someone up from a situation where they probably shouldn’t be in means. You cannot measure, you cannot write that down on paper. That is not a statistic you can put on paper.”

 

When we spoke with Baptist, he was fully immersed in a summer program teaching kids the basics of electrical work. He shared that he hoped he had become the role model they needed.

 

Brandon Baptist

“You lead by example. If the kids in the studio do a lot of craziness, the kids there will do the same thing, understand me? But once you do positive, the kids there will do positive too because the kids there watch what their parents do because it starts with the home. Everything starts with the home. So, by doing this positive thing, there’s several places to teach kids electricals and stuff like that. All the kids there want to do that. Some of them don’t want to learn electrical, and some of them want to come. You understand me? So that will show them the way, if you do positive then.”

 

Marion Ali for News Five.